Crisis-hit hospital installs new £200k air and water filters
After health chiefs’ legal action against builders...
HEALTH chiefs have spent more than £200,000 on water filtration and air quality systems at Scotland’s crisis-hit superhospital.
In a move critics have branded ‘ridiculously late’, NHS bosses have bought additional infection control equipment for Glasgow’s flagship Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH).
The building has been plagued by serious faults and defects since it opened five years ago and is at the centre of a probe into the deaths of two child patients linked to a water contamination crisis.
Meanwhile, two patients died after contracting an infection linked to pigeon droppings, which was thought to have been spread via contaminated air vents.
Last month, this newspaper told how the NHS had launched an unprecedented £73 million legal action against the firm which built the QEUH, Brookfield Multiplex.
It is also taking three other design and construction firms to court.
Health bosses have now revealed plans to spend a total of £201,399 on new filtration systems.
Tendering contracts put out last week indicate the health board is buying ‘water filtration equipment’ and an ‘HVAC plant’ – a machine used to maintain safe indoor air quality. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has said the equipment is being purchased as part of routine refurbishment work.
The machines will be fitted in the neurology building. Images of the department taken by visitors and patients have shown pigeons roosting on the building’s roof and dirty chairs covered in bird faeces.
The prevalence of droppings at the QEUH has been linked to the spread of cryptococcosis, a yeastlike fungal infection found in soil and bird excrement.
It has already been linked to one child cancer patient’s death and the death of an elderly woman. Last night, Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘The purchase of these units for the QEUH appears to be a ridiculously late acceptance that there is a problem with these systems.
‘The issues at the hospital regarding the spread of infection via both its ventilation and water systems have been documented for well over a year now.’
‘Patients affected by these infections will be absolutely shocked it has taken the hospital so long to act. The SNP has completely failed to get a grip of this situation.’
The QEUH is one of the largest acute hospitals in the UK and was built on the site of the old Southern General Hospital.
It has 1,109 beds in single rooms, 30 operating theatres, a neurology centre and adjoins the 256-bed Royal Hospital for Children.
But since its opening in 2015 it has been beset by serious issues.
A leaked report stated areas of the campus were at ‘high risk’ of infection from the water supply when the hospital opened. It also claimed issues were ongoing in 2017 and 2018. Three-year-old Mason Djemat died on August 9, 2017, while on a ward linked to contaminated water.
Later, Milly Main, ten, who was in remission from cancer, died after contracting an infection also thought to be linked to dirty water at the hospital.
Meanwhile, between December 2018 and January of last year, a tenyear-old boy and a 73-year-old woman died following infections linked to pigeon droppings.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has also been under mounting pressure over the hospital, with some calling for her resignation.
Experts are now reviewing 80 cases where children picked up infections while being treated at the Royal Hospital for Children on the QEUH campus. Two paediatric cancer wards have been shut as a precaution and are not due to reopen until summer at the earliest.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: ‘The Institute of Neurosciences is an older building. We are taking the opportunity to instal a new water filtration system. It remains safe for patients and staff while this work is carried out.
‘We regularly test the water at all our hospitals and follow international standards to make sure we provide a safe environment.’
‘Patients will be absolutely shocked’